Criticism Of Death Investigation

Bowling Green, KY – Experts, former jurors and family members are criticizing Western Kentucky University campus police for the way they handled the investigation into a student's murder. Katie Autry was raped and killed in May of 2003. She died at a Nashville hospital after the assault. Lucas Goodrum, one of the men charged with killing Autry, was recently acquitted of all charges. A second man, Stephen Soules, pleaded guilty in the killing before Goodrum's trial. An alternate juror in Goodrum's trial says the police investigation was shoddy. And one of Goodrum's attorney's, David Broderick, says he thinks the investigation had problems because of pressure on the University to solve the killing. Autry's aunt, Virginia White, says she thinks Western Kentucky campus police shouldn't have handled the investigation themselves. She says they should have turned it over to another department with more experience. Campus police have admitted to several missteps. The chief of campus police, Robert Deane, also said campus police had never investigated a homicide before.